BI Demo Comments

[Zatoichi]

Is there currently any way to slow down the movement speeds in the demo? I can't unpack any of the files to get to the relevant text files. I forgot how fast unmodded RTW was - the first thing I did when I bought RTW was to apply the very early movement and combat speed mods that came out when it was first released. That was the one good thing about having to wait a week or two before being able to buy it in England - those nice Americans made a fix for us 'slower is better' brigade!

[Duke John]

This is an one time offer. If enough people wish to have slower running speeds for infantry and cavalry then please make a table of how fast the speed should be in % related to walking speed. There are normal and fast versions of most skeletons, so you can have different speeds for normal archers and fast archers. If you cannot get an agreement then stop complaining about fast movement. The solution that I will provide will work on all mods or original versions that do not have new animations (and those that do should be ashamed that they haven't touched running speeds).

Lysander
The graphical glitches that you see have nothing to do with hardware, some bits CA messed up other bits are just unavoidable when using low detail models. You should either set your unit detail (Graphical Settings) to high which will result in more detailed geometry in your models and thus better animation. Or if your computer is not able to handle higher detail then just do not zoom in

Edit:

CA warned us that there was not much they could do about the speeds without rebuilding the game.

That is BS.

[Little Legioner]

Too much fast. When i had played the battles and tutorials after i said that. Faster then vanilla RTW faster than a Tie fighter. Faster in historic 2X2 km maps... Just imagine this example in 1X1 km standart camp battle maps.

[CBR]

Duke John

The BI demo has actually made me to think about playing RTW again, at least the BI campaign as I think it would be an improvement over old RTW campaign. But the more I think of it the more I also remember how many things I have to mod to have a chance of liking it. One thing is the damn running animations and then I thought of you

But getting an agreement on how much to reduce it with might not be easy. I know how intense a battle can be with MTW speeds and with 25% more units to control I personally wouldnt want faster running speeds than what we had in MTW.


CBR

[SpencerH]

I'd like to see three crosscountry speeds:

line (heavy)-inf:

marching 3mph

dogtrot 5mph

sprint 7mph (max 1 min, only fresh troops)

Lightly armed and armoured inf:

marching 3mph

dogtrot 6mph

sprint 8mph (max 1 min, only fresh and near-fresh troops)

No armour:

marching 3mph

dogtrot 7mph

sprint 10 mph

Routing troops should not run at sprint speed except for the time limits suggested AND if they were near-fresh when rout began

[SpencerH]

Well, crud. I've not even been able to get my interest level up enough to download the demo. CA warned us that there was not much they could do about the speeds without rebuilding the game. And with the short time between the expansion pack and the game it was clear that they wouldn't have time to do nearly what was needed.

Maybe CA will be back on track when the 4th TW generation comes out.

You should try it. If we have any hope of getting bugs fixed, we have to have experienced eyes testing it. They fixed the bug that Oaty found.

[CBR]

I just checked the stats for upgraded units and it appears armour/weapon upgrades are still shown to only give +1 on one stat (defense for armour and attack for weapon) but they are actually increasing it by +2. Would be nice if that "bug" was fixed too.

Edit: Or maybe they actually did lower the effect from upgrades.


CBR

[Coldfish]

The roman units i don`t like them at all....i said that first faction i will play is Western Roman....now after I saw the units...i changed my mind....now i`m looking forward for the Sassanid Empire.....i bet this faction has the nicest units

[CBR]

In what way did you not like them?


CBR

[King Ragnar]

i was wondering should i make a new thread with the link to the download and a link to BKB's scripts then a mod can lock it. It will save people having to go through the other post.

[Little Legioner]

I didn't like from demo. I played again and again it but evertime i bored that ultraspeed movement and high kill rates. They were so fast even vanilla RTW. Mates keep it your mind also standart camp 1X1 battlemaps plus BI speed. Result shall bring us a good thing. I hope CA find a solution. But however speeds must be lowered for balancing and maps should be 2X2 for better and serious gameplay worth to a TW game...

[Coldfish]

In what way did you not like them?


CBR

lets just say the "design"...i really don`t care how historic accurate are...i care about good looking units....those RTW legionaires style are and will be the best looking....i just love that red rectangular shield...anyway...i hope modders will change it...if don`t...i try to change it myself....i don`t stand the BI roman units...and 2nd thing i hate....is that the units are too coloured...too many different colours

[Coldfish]

but the whole idea here: is possible to make them realistic and good looking too....but CA considered the realistic factor is important

[Kagemusha]

Itryed out the demo,and i liked it.The troops are moving still too fast,but the AI seems more co-ordinated.I tryed also Chalons playing the Goths and AI actually reacted when i first harassed the moving Hunnic Army by using its own horse archers against my one unit of them,instead chasing them with its infantry.When the Roman Army finally walked to the battle,i flanked The Hunnic army on the right with my whole force.When i got the flank AI throved Attila himself and two stacks of Hunnic elite warriors against my army of two heavy cavalry,one spearman stack and one horse archer unit.I had a hard work killing them but i succeeded.I won the battle but AI seemed better.

[professorspatula]

Judging by the demo, the first thing to do when getting the full add-on will be to mod the game so it's actually playable/fun. It's amusing to go from slow battles back to turbo paced blink-and-you'll-miss-it action. You look away for just a second and 3 units have routed and another skirmisher unit has decided to run towards the enemy instead of in the opposite direction. A minute later and the battle has ended. The AI is still hopeless I noticed, but hopefully it will have improved for siege battles a little when it's released.

Some of the new units look alright, others have been firmly beaten around the head with an ugly stick though. Interesting how many of the units are carrying missile weapons (throwing axes and javelins) but they aren't currently used. CA have used a surprising number of historical names this time around instead of virtually all generic titles previously, but it's still pretty much a dumbed down RTS game.

I'm not massively impressed by the demo, but I'll probably get the addon, but mostly because of the potential that can be unlocked with a bit of ye olde modding.

[Kitty208]

I haven't had a chance to dwnld the demo yet (my cable modem is broken & i'm waiting for them to bring over a new one, so i don't hav any internet right now - i'm on somebody elses cpu & it can't handle rtw), but I'm interested in the new Roman units. Specifically - what is the difference between the Eastern and Western romans' units? If I remember correctly, the eastern romans had started using more heavy cavalry while the western romans still relied mainly on infantry. Is this reflected in the available units or am I wrong?

BTW - what exactly is in the demo?

[Afro Thunder]

3 historical battles: 1 one is a battle tutorial, 1 is the Battle of Badon Hill, and the third is the Battle of Chalons.

[TB666]

Can a CA staff member tell us how old this demo is ??
Because so far it seem pretty old.
For example, some of the models are different like catholic priest who are carrying a knife instead of a club, the goth spearmen look different too.
Also no new voices and the schiltron seem to have a huge problem beating cavalry.
Also generals is just as suicidal as in RTW V.1.0 so you have taken a step backwards there.

[antisocialmunky]

I think a knife is better than a beatstick...

[Red Harvest]

That is BS.

No, they did say something to that effect. Or do you mean that what CA said was BS? I agree with the latter, it was more a reflection of what they were *willing* to rework than what they *could* rework in my opinion.

[Enjoi_BlackHawk]

first thing i noticed is that units seem faster, way faster, the actually battle only lasted me 1 minute tops, the AI seemingly have gotten better, in the hunnic battle i watched the friendly AI get horses in there rear that hid in the forest (where they hid another one....i found myself with a small unit of elite hunnic whatevers on my back) Horses still to powerfull and horses are also too dumb, in the description they say that some horses are afraid of spears, i wanted to see if they did it...they didnt....

[Duke John]

Red Harvest, I meant it was nonsense that they needed to rebuilding the game. All that need to be done is taking all the running/charging animations and edit them a bit so that they cover less distance in a single animation cycle. As a result units will run slower.

I believe that there is a mod who adds an overhand hoplite animation. I can't understand why someone would make that animation but avoids editing running speed since that has a much greater impact on the enjoyment of the game. Editing descr_battlemap_movement is a bad fix IMO since it also means that units walk slower and that means fixing by breaking things.

[King Ragnar]

Blackhawk i find it a very immpossible that a battle only lasted 1 minute. It would take one minute to get your army engaged with the other nevermind the fightinh taking place.

[Squirrel_of_hatred]

Ok so ive downloaded the file and unzipped it ive got a bunch of files. Now what do i do do i copy the files somewhere??

[King Ragnar]

Ther should be a symbol like the old Rome one just click on that and the game should run.

[Tux]

Red Harvest, I meant it was nonsense that they needed to rebuilding the game. All that need to be done is taking all the running/charging animations and edit them a bit so that they cover less distance in a single animation cycle. As a result units will run slower.

I believe that there is a mod who adds an overhand hoplite animation. I can't understand why someone would make that animation but avoids editing running speed since that has a much greater impact on the enjoyment of the game. Editing descr_battlemap_movement is a bad fix IMO since it also means that units walk slower and that means fixing by breaking things.

If they slow down the animations this means they will have to rebalance the game after them, since the units die to fast it would unbalance the game,and example if you hide your cavalry away in the woods far away from the main army when they would arrive it would be to late if the anims are to slow, so it's not fully BS,but they could have gave us a way to to slow them down, an animation tool or something. As for the anims mod, what would be the use if you slow down a skeleton if all others are to quick, if you wan't to do it right then you must do all animations and this would take enourmous time to do. Anyway you should check the bi anim pack you'll see that they did started something, to little but still(maybe more in BI?!), here are some slow new anims:
bi/data/animations/fs_semi_fast_dagger_run.CAS
bi/data/animations/fs_semi_fast_javelinman_run.CAS
bi/data/animations/fs_semi_fast_swordsman_run.CAS
bi/data/animations/fs_slow_2handed_run.CAS
bi/data/animations/fs_slow_spearman_run.CAS
bi/data/animations/fs_slow_swordsman_run.CAS
bi/data/animations/horse/fs_cataphract_horse_run.CAS
Those just my thoughts and i do blame CA for making the units move to fast in the first place.

[Little Legioner]

We cannot play the game if it shall be same like the demo. Infantry like marathon runners and cavalry like kawasaki bikes in game. Kill rates are still same, movement speeds faster even RTW, cavalry like unstoppable panzers... Our hopes still bounded to the modding possibilities of BI. I really understand at the moment what was the mean of "tightening" and "polishing" of the tactical stage of BI. Don't miss the point we shall play this battles on 1X1 standart maps this means double the speed of game. Half a minute later our battles will be shut. At the Chalons war was ending in 2 minutes when the battle has started. Just imagine tiny ones

[Intrepid Sidekick]

Hello everyone

Just a few points:

Walking speeds are the same as RTW and actually very realistic. (They are motion captured from a real person walking and are to scale)

Infantry Unit running speeds have been slowed for armoured troops by about 10%. (BTW They are also from motion capture)

Skirmishers move only very slightly slower than before.

There are also different cavalry movement speeds between light, medium and heavy cavalry.

The AI has been improved.

The game unit movements and kill rates haven't sped up, at all, in any area of the game.

Perhaps this perception to the contrary is either as a result of playing modded versions of the RTW game? i.e. where speeds and kill rates have been significantly reduced or a mistaken recollection of the original game speeds?


Intrepid Sidekick

[SpencerH]

Hello everyone

Just a few points:

Walking speeds are the same as RTW and actually very realistic. (They are motion captured from a real person walking and are to scale)

Infantry Unit running speeds have been slowed for armoured troops by about 10%. (BTW They are also from motion capture)

Skirmishers move only very slightly slower than before.

There are also different cavalry movement speeds between light, medium and heavy cavalry.

The AI has been improved.

The game unit movements and kill rates haven't sped up, at all, in any area of the game.

Perhaps this perception to the contrary is either as a result of playing modded versions of the RTW game? i.e. where speeds and kill rates have been significantly reduced or a mistaken recollection of the original game speeds?


Intrepid Sidekick

Glad to see y'all responding. I hope some of the thread comments are helpful.

The walking speeds etc may have been taken from motion capture but the actual speeds are in no way realistic. All you need to do is ask an ex-grunt (such as myself) how fast modern inf units move cross-country while carrying weapons etc. Staying in massed unit formations (such as in TW) will slow things down yet further.

To some extent though, the walking speeds are a moot point. Its a game. If the battles were played with realistic movement speeds many players (especially those who've not had the pleasure of 'humpin their ass through the grass') would complain that they are too slow.

I think the real culprit is the infantry running speed. The last time it I saw a discussion, running inf were clocked at 10mph!!!!! To put it in perspective, thats the speed of an elite modern marathon runner (who is obviously not burdened by helmet, shield, spear etc). Most importantly though, the inf running speed is way too fast in comparison to the cav running speeds. One only has to watch routing inf units outrun pursuing cav to know something is wrong.

[sunsmountain]

No, Intrepid, its merely because of comparing RomeTW to MedievalTW. Medieval units behave like slow moving blocks... they can be easily manipulated and give the AI plenty of time to react, with fewer options to flunk.

I care about a good AI. I dont have doubts you can improve this. But the actual fighting is over pretty fast. Perhaps realistic, but i like a prolonged fight more than a fast one. It allows you to enjoy the fruits of your strategic labour.

I can always increase the hitpoints, so soldiers fight longer & i can enjoy that more, it does theoretically make units like gladiators, arcani, etc less useful.

ps.: Running infantry speeds are indeed quite fast. Consider jogging instead? How long can a soldier run anyway? Was their endurance better back then?